It was a cinematic magic trick that only M. Night Shyamalan could execute – revealing to the audience that Split and Unbreakable exist in the same universe.
Such an ambitious crossover led us to where we are today, on the verge of Shyamalan’s third and presumably final ‘super’ thriller. Its name? Glass, and Entertainment Weekly has today relayed the first-look images of David Dunn (Bruce Willis), Glass/Elijah Price (MCU veteran Samuel L. Jackson) and Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) all sharing the screen for the very first time.
And it’s an event movie that certainly took McAvoy by surprise, too, as he recalled the moment when M. Night Shyamalan detailed his franchise crossover during the production of Split last year.
We were chatting and he said, ‘Well, maybe if this one does well, we’ll do another one’. I was like, ‘Really? We’re going to do a sequel to Split?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, you know, bring back David and all that.’ And I was like, David? Oh, wait a minute…
Pretty cool, no? Though it may seem like a Shyamalan-infused gimmick, Glass is bursting at the seams with potential, not least because it promises to explore the many personalities residing within the mind of Kevin Wendell Crumb – McAvoy tells EW that “we get to spend some time with some new people that live inside Kevin.”
Anya Taylor-Joy is also back to reprise the role of Casey Cooke, where she joins Charlayne Woodard (Elijah’s mom) and Spencer Treat Clark (David’s son) for the 2019 thriller. The latter duo seemingly has a “big role” to play, though as this is an M. Night Shyamalan joint, perhaps it’s best to expect the unexpected.
Unbreakable, Split and now Glass, the third and presumably final installment in M. Night Shyamalan’s genre-bending trilogy. Its ETA? January 18th.